you. You have the
chance to get all sorts of culture and everything, and I just stay
home--"

"Well, gosh almighty, there's nothing to prevent your reading books and
going to lectures and all that junk, is there?"

"George, I told you, I won't have you shouting at me like that! I don't
know what's come over you. You never used to speak to me in this cranky
way."

"I didn't mean to sound cranky, but gosh, it certainly makes me sore to
get the blame because you don't keep up with things."

"I'm going to! Will you help me?"

"Sure. Anything I can do to help you in the culture-grabbing line--yours
to oblige, G. F. Babbitt."

"Very well then, I want you to go to Mrs. Mudge's New Thought meeting
with me, next Sunday afternoon."

"Mrs. Who's which?"

"Mrs. Opal Emerson Mudge. The field-lecturer for the American New
Thought League. She's going to speak on 'Cultivating the Sun Spirit'
before the League of the Higher Illumination, at the Thornleigh."

"Oh, punk! New Thought! Hashed thought with a poached egg! 'Cultivating
the--' It sounds like 'Why is a mouse when it spins?' That's a fine
spiel for a good Presbyterian to be going to, when you can hear Doc
Drew!"

"Reverend Drew is a scholar and a pulpit orator and all that, but he
hasn't got the Inner Ferment, as Mrs. Mudge calls it; he hasn't any
inspiration for the New Era. Women need inspiration now. So I want you
to come, as you promised."

IV

The Zenith branch of the League of the Higher Illumination met in the
smaller ballroom at the Hotel Thornleigh, a refined apartment with pale
green walls and plaster wreaths of roses, refined parquet flooring, and
ultra-refined frail gilt chairs. Here were gathered sixty-five women and
ten men. Most of the men slouched in their chairs and wriggled, while
their wives sat rigidly at attention, but two of them--red-necked, meaty
men--were as respectably devout as their wives. They were newly rich
contractors who, having bought houses, motors, hand-painted pictures,
and gentlemanliness, were now buying a refined ready-made philosophy.
It had been a toss-up with them whether to buy New Thought, Christian
Science, or a good standard high-church model of Episcopalianism.

In the flesh, Mrs. Opal Emerson Mudge fell somewhat short of a prophetic
aspect. She was pony-built and plump, with the face of a haughty
Pekingese, a button of a nose, and arms so short that, despite her most
indignant endeavors, she could not clasp her